MANGER S1 ACTIVE LOUDSPEAKER

My first exposure to Manger Audio loudspeakers, which are based on the “bending-wave” technology invented years ago by the company, was to the Manger p2, their passive flagship speaker, at the 2019 AXPONA. I heard it again a month or so later at High End Munich. I was impressed both times, especially by its transient and spatial performance. I don’t remember what music I heard at AXPONA, but in Munich, I asked to hear Duke Ellington’s Jazz Party in Stereo, which (despite being first released in mono, as Duke Ellington Jazz Party) is one of the more profoundly stereo issues of its era. The album features no fewer than nine percussionists, not including drummer Sam Woodyard. Producer Irving Townsend, who wrote the liner notes, called it “the most exciting album of jazz I’ve ever heard.” In Munich, the Manger p2s presented it in all its ping-pongy glory. Percussive sounds exploded out of empty space all over the soundstage, like little shrapnel charges going off, front to back, high and low, way out to the sides.

I was impressed enough that I decided to ask for a sample for review. Precisely why or how I don’t recall, but I received a pair of s1’s instead of the newer p2’s. The s1 ($24,995) is an active speaker: The “Manger Sound Transducer,”